I just put the final touches on this fisherman's gansey today. It is made of Patons Capstan oiled wool that I have had for years. The labels stained the yarn blue and I had to reel that part off of each skein. It turns out some of the yarn was slightly different colors even though it was all the same dye lot. (Some had been knit and reballed and was kind of dirty. I've washed it now and it is still dirty looking.) DH likes it, he says it looks "vintage". Good thing.

Did you use the Channel Island cast-on for the front and back? It looks like it. That cast-on was developed and originally used by gansey knitters!

Is this your own design? I wouldn't be surprised! You are do a lot of your own design work, a quality that I certainly admire! I think I see either the initials TG or JG on the lower front left! Did you 'sign' your work? Or are these Tom's initials? Either way, WOW! That is cool!!!

Anyway, thanks for sharing the sweater with a husband inside it! I'll bet Tom's hat is his own creation, am I right??? I just showed this to John, and he oogled Tom's hat and said "I bet that's a hat he knit!"

Thanks Dollyce, your praise is always coveted. Yes, that is the Channel Island cast-on. I did design this myself. Tom saw a little kid's gansey with an anchor in front with a tight cable on each side. He said he'd like that on it. (turns out it is pretty much under his beard, but there is one in back too. I picked most of the stitch patterns from Beth Brown-Reinsel's book Knitting Ganseys (including the anchor). One of the background stitches I kind of made up, but I'm sure it is not new. There is a heart under his beard at the very top. Only in the front where no one will see it and think he is a sissy. Those are Tom's initials. They were often worked on traditional ganseys, so we went with that too. TG

I am glad to use some of this stash yarn. I've had it for years. Now I want to do something with the rest of it I have including the blue stained part. I'm thinking of trying dying some of it.

John has a good eye. The hat is a Tom creation all right. I took some other pictures of him (on Ravelry) in a Greek fisherman's hat. He made that hat too with his sewing skills.

I LOVE your sweater - it is absolutely beautiful. I have been thinking about making a gansey and checking out gansey yarn. Don't believe Patons makes the Capstan any more. Another beautiful book is Country Weekend Knits by Madeline Weston. It has ganseys, arans, Shetland lace, hap shawls, etc. with great photos.

I don't know if Patons makes the Capstan anymore or not, I saw some in people's stashes on Ravelry, but it was different than mine. Mine actually said: Patons Aran- Aran-Style Pure Wool and it was oiled. I believe most truly traditional ganseys had lighter weight wool (Aran is a little bigger than worsted and I believe they used some a bit smaller than worsted, more like sport weight.) I worked mine to 5 sts= inch.

I have that book Country Weekend Knits. One of my daughters bought it for me. She thought she wanted one of the sweaters, but I couldn't get the gauge to work out the way it was given (over pattern), so I made a different sweater and she thought maybe, after all, it was a better choice for her and she loved it. It does have some pretty sweaters, but I haven't made anything from it.

I made my sweater with the help of Beth Brown-Reinsel's book Knitting Ganseys. I love that book. She walks you through making a miniature gansey, and if you follow along with the book it is like going to a workshop. Then she explains how to adapt what you learned from the sampler to making your own personalized gansey. She also has 6 patterns (3 for children, 2 for adults and 1 that is an adult cardigan) that have directions, but use the concepts she taught in the first part of the book. I made 2 of those and then 2 little ganseys of my own design before I tackled the big one (but I am a slow learner, and overly cautious sometimes).

In Knitting Ganseys, Beth says that the typical old ganseys were made of a highly twisted 5 ply wool about like todays sport in weight and they knitted them to between 7 and 9 sts per inch.